


What the Heart Wants

by Dreamincolor (nookiepoweredamazon)



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Romance, Trust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nookiepoweredamazon/pseuds/Dreamincolor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aurora grows into her crown with grace, pulling down walls that lesser hearts could never scale. Slowly, Maleficent realizes this may not just apply to Aurora's kingdom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Deep in the heart of the moors - where crystal-skinned wyrms moved like great horses on the breeze, sprites of all colors and size flittered, tending to their elements, and great forest guardians walked with huge, reverberating steps - a young human queen stood, surrounded by her many magical subjects, and did what she and the moorland creatures did best. 

She laughed feverishly, and _played._

In the evening's dying light, Aurora's royal robe lay in a forgotten heap at the foot of a sprawling oak, its gold and green trim mixing in with the leaves around it. Her boots lay equally forgotten; toes free to curl into damp earth at the water's edge. A tiny water sprite flew up and leaned in, all but _disappearing_ into Aurora's blonde hair, and chattered excitedly. The young queen must have found the shared words exceptionally funny because she tossed her head back hard enough to make her leafy crown sit crooked, laughter pouring out of her like music.

Diaval rested as a man on his side in the grass - fastidiously cleaning the dirt out from underneath his fingernails nails and picking the occasional stray leaf out from his hair, in a motion that, all together, looked very much like preening.

"It's impossible to keep clean, now that's she's here," the raven-hearted man said fondly, barely concealing the glee in his tone. "She's such a wild, messy thing."

Maleficent was, as was her habit, watching Aurora's royal antics from higher up the river back a few paces beyond Diaval, her winged body tucked back against a particularly thick tree root where she could bathe in the young queen's laughter from a distance.

"Mmm," Maleficent murmured, noncommittally.

Aurora had always accepted the magic of things around her without question. She opened herself up to everyone and everything like there was nothing to hide - and for Aurora, the fairy supposed, there wasn't. __

The queen crouched at the water's edge, whispering tiny nothings to water nymphs who, one by one, giggled uncontrollably and then leaned over to their neighbor. They whispered the same nonsense, one at a time, over the slow babbling of the water until the message had come back around hopelessly distorted and so illogical that everyone fell into stitches.

Maleficent smiled indulgently, and let a rare slip of thought cross her lips.

"The world comes alive around her."

It was truly a sight to see, for as much as the moors had always been beautiful even in the shadow of a vengeful protector; now, in the light of Aurora's soul and spirit, the forest's beauty was overwhelming.

A handful of bright, dim-witted fire sprites fluttered around Aurora's head, dancing silly dances and taking part in young queen's mirth without understanding it. Their bodies cast an impossible, fiery-orange light on the smiling girl, lighting up her eyes and bathing her features in an ethereal glow.  

"She has taken to the crown" Diaval said, from his place on the ground "... _impressively_."

Maleficent could see Aurora now in her mind's eye, at the front of the castle hall- her back straight and her jaw tight, looking impossibly steadfast for such a gentle soul. It was with a single-minded, unfaltering resolution that the new queen made her first proclamation: all iron was to be removed from her kingdom.

There had been a ripple of mutters, a wave of unrest, but after a long held breath the sea of men and women had bowed to her - maybe with arguments in their head but never their hearts, for even a fairy-loving queen was worlds better than a mad man. Maleficent had watched from the furthest shadows of the rafters as every will in the room bowed to the unflinching silhouette of little Aurora.

"Marvelously," Maleficent agreed, in a voice laden with pride.  

Little fire sprites continued to whirl around the young queen, and when Aurora locked eyes with her, Maleficent realized she had been staring.

Aurora waved a goodbye to her playmates and scrambled up the bank towards them, and in an instant Maleficent found that something in her (or, was it the wings _on_ her?) fluttered with a small but inexplicable anxiety at the young woman rushing towards her -- until Aurora tripped all at once over Diaval, and landed herself in a tickling fight.

The little tumble took several minutes for Aurora to break up, and by the time she had reached the top of the bank Maleficent was smirking, watching with a raised eyebrow as Aurora finally pried her final ankle free of a clinging Diaval. The girl stumbled the last few feet to her, cheeks flushed and aching from so many smiles, and breathed a winded _hello_.

Diaval rolled over and collapsed back onto the ground with a grin, hands folded over his chest, eyes to the sky.

Maleficent smiled, easily. "Hello, beastie."

Aurora crowded expertly into her space, sitting down and scooting in among the heavy tree roots so that their sides nearly touched, the girl's back ghosting against Maleficent's extended wing. ~~~~

Bright, happy eyes looked up at her -- and it was with such adoration, such unabashed affection, that Aurora said "I love you like this" that it took Maleficent almost a full minute to realize that Aurora was talking about her change in appearance.

With her wings returned to her, the fairy no longer felt compelled to keep her hair capped tight against her head or her collars high against her throat. Maleficent's hair fell loose around her horns again, like it had so many years ago, and the green of the forest had eked its way back into her robes. This, Aurora had told her on more than one occasion, suited her.

"And your wings..." Dotingly, Aurora reached out, brushing one of her flight feathers tenderly.  "Your wings make you all the more beautiful."

The return of her wings. Memories of a heavy iron net that _burned_ and a castle hall filled with shields and swords and fear pounding through her veins resurfaced, until the girl in front of her swam back into focus, and Maleficent remembered.

Aurora had thrown away not just an iron ring -- she had thrown away an entire _kingdom_ of iron rings, and shields and swords -- and it made something in Maleficent's heart ache all at once in an unbearably wonderful way.

As if gifting Maleficent her wings had not been enough.

"It's like," Aurora murmured, under Maleficent's growing smile, "they make you whole."  
   
Slender fingertips ghosted over the fairy's forearm, earnestly.

Beyond Aurora's shoulder Maleficent noticed that Diaval had turned to face them now, his eyebrows slowly starting to rise towards his hairline with interest.

Maleficent was torn between levitating the nosey raven up by his ankles or turning him into a toad, both of which would have ended with her dropping him in the lake. This decision was interrupted when, produced from somewhere in her dress, Aurora held out a white-and-yellow water lily to her.

Maleficent looked at it for a slow, speculative moment before cupping it in her hands and looking questioningly at Aurora.   

"Don't worry." The smiling girl said, through a curtain of hair. "The plant gave it to me. I would never pluck it."

This was not the question Maleficent had had in mind, but not truly knowing what question she did have in mind, she nodded.

Diaval's face seemed to be working through a series of gymnastics - apparently the young queen offering his mistress a flower was simultaneously the most charming and bewildering thing he had ever seen - and he continued to be entirely distracting until Aurora cast him a pleading look.

"Diaval, could we have a moment?"

"Aah - of course." He turned an annoyingly crooked smile to Maleficent, who was sitting with one of her eyebrows raised. "Mistress?"

Maleficent raised two fingers, swirling with wispy, yellow light.

"Into a bird."

She'd have turned him into a toad instead, if she hadn't thought it would upset Aurora.  
  
The newly formed raven shook out his wings and fluttered for a moment near Aurora, soliciting a goodbye pet, before blinking his small black eyes at his mistress and - with a dismissive wave of her hand - taking off into the treetops.  
  
Then, everything was still.  
  
The next few moments crawled by in uncertain silence, and it was with a strange gravity that Maleficent waited. Maleficent, who was never unnerved by anything  - except, apparently, by unsolicited gifts of water lilies.  
  
"Godmother," the little queen whispered softly, "What am I to you?"  
  
Maleficent resisted the impulse to answer _"a blonde mud pixie"_ as she brushed streak of dirt from the girl's cheek. But eyes, wide and familiar, stared directly at her - with more sincerity than a lesser heart could bear - and Aurora's hand grasped her own, pressing it firmly against her cheek.  
  
Maleficent missed a breath, and something missed a beat.  
  
"You are my heart." The fairy stated, finally. "I would protect you with my life and I will care for you - as I do now - until the end of my days." She paused, brow furrowing. "You never have to worry, and you never need to ask."  
  
It had been a difficult few months without Aurora, and it would be more difficult still to let her leave again. The human kingdom was drowning in the wake of Stephan's greed, and it was taking more than the appointed half of the young queen's time - ideally, split between her two kingdoms - to right it.  
  
Selfishly, Maleficent wished that the moors weren't so grand at righting themselves, so that they might warrant more of Aurora's attention.  
  
"And I am grateful for that." Aurora took Maleficent's long fingers in her own, easily, and moved them so that their intertwined hands sat in the young queen's lap. "Especially now... When we're apart, when I'm in the castle... I _feel_ your protection, even when you're not there. Greater than the guards, greater than the walls. I feel you with me and it helps me, allows me to do what I have to without fear. But-"  
  
The girl’s mouth opened and closed, as if she were gathering her thoughts, or mustering courage.  
  
"But, I feel... when I look at you, I feel..." Aurora leaned down thoughtfully, so close that her blonde hair tickled Maleficent's arm where her sleeve ended, and something about both the swelling emotion in Aurora's voice and their proximity was all together _unnerving_.  
  
"I feel that, as happy as I am now, here, with you - that there is something more that I... I don't know how to place."  
  
Aurora touched her, softly, at the wrist -- Maleficent could feel her pulse singing, thumping in the veins beneath Aurora's fingertips -- and struggled to keep her face in check.  
  
Blue eyes looked at her pointedly, and Maleficent’s wings twitched.  
  
"Something more than your protection."  
  
It was a low and certain murmur, and it shot something straight into Maleficent's chest.  
  
Aurora was a queen; unlucky enough to have been cursed, strong enough to have survived, and wise enough to rule two kingdoms. Yet, somehow – Maleficent was certain – still not old enough for this.  
  
The fairy’s heart clenched and constricted treacherously in her chest, for it pained her to deny the girl anything, but...  
  
It was only a moment before, at Maleficent's stricken expression, Aurora folded.  
  
The queen's face fell, staring at the hand clutched tightly in her lap as she drew in a long, shuddering breath; and Maleficent thought, if she did not do something soon, the girl might begin to cry.    
  
And that, she simply could not bear.  
  
"Come here," Maleficent murmured, lifting an arm.  
  
The girl fell into her immediately, and Maleficent gathered up Aurora - in the first bodily embrace she could remember since scheming, drug-wielding embraces that she did not wish to remember - and the young queen nestled into her without hesitation. The fairy's arms and wings closed around them, embracing Aurora with form and feather in equal measure, and long fingers moved to stroke, soothingly, through blonde hair.  
   
It was a strange, though not all together unpleasant feeling that settled low in Maleficent's stomach at the way Aurora's fingers laced into her robe without pause _,_ and it wasn't long before Maleficent realized that Aurora was stroking at her back gently, holding as much as she was being held and soothing as much as she was being soothed.  
  
This, somehow, struck Maleficent as profoundly charming, and she was not sure what to make of it.  
  
"I want to be close to you." Aurora's voice came, small, from her place in the crook of Maleficent's neck with surprising conviction. "As close as you'll let me."  
  
The sounds of the forest chirped and whistled and swept around them, and Maleficent's breath came unevenly. Then, finally, because she knew that she must say _something_ -  
  
"Sweet Aurora," with a single finger, Maleficent tilted the queen's chin up. "You are closer to me than any soul has ever been."  
  
A warm smile spread out, slowly, across Aurora's face, and it looked so at home there that, for the first time since the conversation began, Maleficent felt that she could breathe again.     
  
"Now, your kingdom is waiting for you."  
  
They had gathered a tiny, not so subtle audience of fairy folk, peering at them now from within trees and behind branches, and some from partially underwater. Many ears, more finely tuned than any human's, were listening to the words exchanged between their queen and their protector with great and not altogether welcome interest.    
  
"I'll be here when you return."  
  
The fairy looked down, and eyes looked back up at her with such adoration that impulsively Maleficent kissed the young queen softly on her forehead - her wing sweeping up to block the act from view.  
  
"Go," she coaxed.  
  
Aurora stood to leave and - before anything could be said or done - placed a kiss on an angular cheek, leaving it pink and burning.  
   
    
Maleficent spent a long moment watching Aurora's bound out of ear shot, down the bank and across the wet rocks, to a portion of lake where the wallerbogs were just tucking in to sleep - gathering a crowd of moorland creatures as she went.  
  
"I'd turn you back into a man simply to see you fall out of this tree," Maleficent said dully, "but I have the distinct impression I'm not going to like what you have to say."  
  
There was a pause. Then a somewhat sheepish Diaval landed softly on a branch beside her - if ravens were, in fact, capable of sheepishness.   
  
"It's rude to eavesdrop," she growled.  
  
Maleficent could see her Familiar fidgeting, even as her eyes held, trained, onto her charge. Aurora was bending down, now, and kissing each wallerbog goodnight.  
  
"I should turn you into something with fleas."  
  
The bird beside her shifted, stepping from foot to foot nervously, before seemingly steeling himself and puffing out his feathers. He tilted his head in Aurora's direction pointedly then looked back at his mistress, head cocked to one side.  
  
"I am neither daft nor deaf." Her red lips tilted downwards, eyes narrow. "I know what she's implying without you explaining it to me, Diaval."  
  
He stepped from foot to foot, insistently.  
  
Maleficent picked up and examined the water lily from her lap, spinning it between forefinger and thumb. Magic trickled out of her fingertips like a fog and raised the flower up, spinning it gently on the air.  
  
Her voice came, more softly now. "She's only a child."  
  
It was a long moment before Diaval let out a noise, a singular, gentle croon.  
  
Maleficent huffed softly, and let the flower drop back to her lap.  
  
She extended her arm to him, and the raven stepped forward - his black eyes inquisitive, now, but his posture no longer persistent - and the weight of him was somehow soothing. Maleficent supposed, now that she gave it any thought, most of her physical contact over the past decade had been with Diaval. God knows he'd never lay a hand on her as a man, but as a bird, his presence was no longer an imposition.  
  
She drew her forearm back to her body and let him settle there, his perch resting across her lap.  
  
"She has seen so little of the world," the fairy said, to the bird on her arm.  
  
He crooned, nipping her wrist.  
  
Maleficent's eyes trained on the young queen again, as they always did, and she exhaled slowly as she ran her fingers over Diaval's feathers.  
  
"That," Maleficent sighed, "will change."  
 ~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was kindly beta'd by [Stormy.](http://heyyouwiththeboobs.tumblr.com/) Any mistakes are still mine.


	2. Chapter 2

Time passed and Aurora grew, as she always had, in both grace and in beauty. Maleficent gave silent thanks from time to time for the gifts given by Aurora's foolish pixie aunts, for even when the woes of the kingdom hung heavy on her shoulders, Aurora was bright and radiantly happy. Her hope and patience seemed to spring eternal, and she found light in even the darkest parts of her kingdom.

"I am the queen of the fairies, and I will sleep like a fairy," Aurora stated with an air of finality, one day, when Maleficent proposed creating a house for her in the moors. "I don't need a house, and I don't need a bed. I want to sleep in a tree like the fair folk do."

The human half of the kingdom had finally calmed down enough for Aurora to come and go readily from the moors; but there were only so many times she could pass out in the nook of a tree or on Diaval's shoulder before being roused to sleep in the cottage she had grown up in. It was a longer journey than sleepy queens liked to make, and the fair folk loathed saying goodbye - even overnight.

Plus, the world outside the moors had become a worrisome place, now that Aurora was royalty.

"So, you want to sleep like a fairy, mm?" Maleficent tapped her chin, and Aurora nodded vigorously. Diaval sat on Aurora's shoulder, nibbling at little bits of her hair. 

"Well, some fairies sleep in the mud." Maleficent cast a sidelong glance in her direction. "Perhaps that would suit you, if you were a fairy." 

That earned Maleficent a swat from Aurora, a chastising _caw_ from Diaval, and the right to spend several days setting up the queen's new bed in the lower boughs of her tree. 

  

Aurora's hammock hung several feet below Maleficent's in the rowan, with a handful of little nests surrounding it to hold her things. ("Exceptionally fine nests," Diaval had boasted, as soon as he'd stopped fussing with them. "No one builds nests like a raven.") Aurora's hammock hung above a careful web of branches, nestling her in where she could not possibly fall, and was situated so that both Maleficent and Diaval could keep an eye on her. They were, after all, her guardians in the moors - where Aurora would not allow her human guards to follow her. 

"Such silly human comforts," Maleficent had scoffed, when Aurora's hammock was filled to the brim with pillows and blankets. 

But Maleficent soon found that these human comforts were, without a doubt, needed for Aurora during the winter nights. The wind whipped freely through the highland moors where the great rowan grew, and while both Maleficent and Diaval could settle low beneath their feathered wings, Aurora was forced to burrow in blankets that did not work half as well. There were some nights, truly icy nights, when no amount of pillows and blankets could make the wind bearable, and Maleficent could almost feel Aurora's teeth chattering in the boughs below. 

Diaval would chirp, insistently, over the wind at Maleficent from his nest up above, and she would move the magic in her fingertips until the branches themselves were twisting around Aurora's hammock to block the storm, their leaves rising to shield her from the wind. When that was not enough she would reach out over Aurora and dust the resting queen with warm furls of yellow magic, which moved and licked like gentle flames until she ceased to shiver. 

Even still, on one truly cold night during Aurora's first winter as queen, Maleficent's magic was not enough. There was a rustling and fidgeting from below, and Maleficent rolled over to see Aurora clutching at her warmest blanket and clamoring up the rowan tree. She stopped just below Maleficent's branch, wearing nothing but her sleeping dress, a blanket pulled tight around her shoulders. 

There, sleep-mussed and shivering, Aurora asked very politely - if not a little pitifully, shuddering from head to toe - if she could lie next to Maleficent to get warm.

"I kn-know your wings keep you warm." Aurora explained. "Your magic is wonderful, but...I think your wings would be warmer."

Maleficent paused, lips pursed and eyebrow raised. She reached out a hand and sent several warming furls of bright light curling around Aurora, stopping her trembling. 

Aurora's eyes darted to Maleficent's fingertips. "Or you...could give me wings?"

Maleficent huffed. 

"Don't be silly, you would look preposterous."

It seemed as if Aurora was about to argue this point, when - exhaling slowly and looking off to the side - Maleficent lifted up a wing. Aurora only stared at the feathery grace as if it were something completely new to her, or as if she had forgotten what she'd asked.

"Well, get in then." Maleficent murmured. "At this rate _I'm_ going to get cold."

Aurora beamed, showing the utmost care when climbing in beside the fairy; but it was not without anxiety that Maleficent allowed the girl to settle against her. There was the nearness, which she was unaccustomed to on its own, even with a blanket buffered between them, but more than that there were her _wings_. Aurora had been granted fleeting touches - but they were few and far between. It was one thing to stroke at a feather in passing; it was an entirely different thing to lie beneath them.

It was no secret how much Aurora adored her wings, and Maleficent would not have been surprised if she had reached out immediately to stroke them; an act that would, without a doubt, petrify the fairy - however lovingly it was intended.

Aurora was a gentle, dear-hearted thing, but there were days Maleficent still woke, gasping and clutching at her back in a silent scream, certain that the wings she felt were only phantom limbs. 

Maleficent feared for them, somewhere deep in her bones on a level she could not shake, and to have her wings touched so soon after their return was devastating intimacy she could not bear.

Even from Aurora. 

But mercifully, Aurora was often wiser than she appeared; and whether it was the way Maleficent tensed her wing hesitantly above them, the way the color drained from her face in the dark, or some other magic unique to Aurora, the little queen seemed to know. 

When Aurora lay down she did not reach out for either form or feather. Instead, she whispered her thanks sweetly, wrapped her arms safely around herself, and rolled over where she could not stare or touch - waiting patiently for the feathers to cover her, if they chose to, in their own time. 

Aurora had gifted her these wings, and yet she did not demand them. Aurora didn't demand anything. 

This made something in the fairy ache deeply with guilt and adoration in equal parts, and it took all Maleficent's self-control not to take to the skies where, she would hope, such sentiments could not follow her. 

"Are you alright?" Aurora asked, gently, after several still moments.

"Yes." Maleficent's breath left her in a low murmur. "Yes, just fine."

Maleficent wrapped an arm carefully around Aurora's waist, pressing ever so slightly into the little queen's back to offer all her warmth, and then - very slowly - draped a large feathered wing over them both. 

"Goodnight," Aurora breathed, softly.

"Goodnight,"Maleficent replied, as smoothly as she could, "beastie."

 

This marked the first of many cold, windy nights on the moors where Aurora would make the unassuming climb up to Maleficent's branch and ask, very gently, if she could share her bed. 

Those nights Maleficent slept little and felt much; for even though she loved the queen with all her heart, her heart was not what it once was. The intimacy of sleeping side by side left her raw, so quickly did it drudge up old memories of nearness - associated strongly now with betrayal and loss - and so tentatively did it toy with new feelings she did not wish to feel. 

Maleficent was keenly aware of the way Aurora would press back ever so slightly, trusting her so _completely_ , and of the way Aurora's heartbeat settled like Maleficent's hammock was the safest, warmest place in the whole world -- while her own heartbeat pounded like a drum.

Maleficent thought more than once, that, if she allowed it, Aurora would sleep against her every night, rain or shine.

And more than once, Maleficent wished she could. 

 

It was several years of peace under Aurora’s reign before the gentle queen was forced to make use of her army.

It was an early day in the summer months when the Kingdom of Myrce and the Kingdom of Leria rode their troops towards the border of Aurora’s kingdom and stood, several hundred men strong, under a banner of war. Their demands were simple: Aurora would give up the throne, or they would take it from her. She was unwilling to trade – or, indeed, even to _use_ – many of her land’s natural resources, unmoving on the subject of the moorland’s pristine protection, and was deemed by their unified cause unfit to rule at all. For what was an eighteen year old girl doing, unmarried and unwilling to marry, ruling with a council which was half beasts?

To their eyes it was unnatural, and to their hearts it was unsettling. 

But armies could not walk Maleficent’s world without her knowing, and it was not long before both fairy and raven swept unceremoniously into the throne room to find Aurora sitting down to her morning council, bathed in sunlight. 

Daylight poured into the throne room through the open ceiling. The entire roof, along with many of the second floor rooms (one of which, Maleficent suspected, had held her wings) had been completely torn off. This left the throne room as a sort of open courtyard, where subjects of both earth and sky could come and go freely, and vines grew over the lengths of stone walls. It was so beautiful, so completely _Aurora_ , that Maleficent almost regretted proposing they burn it to the ground years earlier, when it still reminded her iron and armies.

"Maleficent!" 

Blonde hair was still mussed from sleep, and the pink that rose to Aurora's cheeks at the sight of them made their queen look very young indeed - as if, somehow, those who had watched her since birth should not see her before breakfast. She rose and embraced Diaval, even as wisps of yellow magic turned him back into a man, and then stepped near to Maleficent. The fairy reached out in greeting to brush stray blonde hair aside, and Aurora smiled broadly.

"You..." Aurora started, her face falling at Maleficent's expression, "have bad news."

Maleficent's frown deepened, and she brushed the little queen's cheek. “Leria and Myrce are marching towards our border."

"But, why-"

"Under a banner of war." 

Aurora's small morning council - three bearded men, a mudcap, and an elderly gnome - made themselves known by breaking into hurried conversation. The men clutched at their beards and looked to one another with wide eyes. Aurora frowned, worried her bottom lip, but Maleficent noted that she did not look surprised.

"Diaval flew over them and listened for their intentions." Maleficent continued, chin tilted up with disgust. "They say they'll have your crown.”

She would never understand the hearts of men. Terrible, greedy things - for who could wish harm on queen or kingdom so soft?

A voice in the back of Maleficent's head reminded her, in a whisper, that she had. 

"I refused to trade them iron months ago." Aurora said, with a deepening frown. Maleficent found it a most bizarre expression for their usually bright human to wear, and felt her fingers move minutely with the impulse to brush it away. "They _know_ we don't mine it here anymore," Aurora continued, "but even if we had it I wouldn't give it. They've shown far too much interest in...in..."

" _The moors_." The gnome behind her squeaked anxiously.

For all the mockery directed at the little queen from foreign nations – teasing of Aurora's kingdom full of pixies and magic dust – there was a deeply rooted fear at the unknown power Aurora’s combined kingdoms had brought, and an even deeper longing for the untouched resources of the moors, vulnerable now that the wall of thorns had come down.

Maleficent breathed deeply, struggling to school her features. The moors were her soul, to threaten them was to threaten Maleficent herself, and she had not watched Aurora pour her every breath into this combined kingdom for nothing. 

“Aurora," she started, with a carefully clipped tone, forcing her words to be even, "what do you propose?” 

The young queen's face fluctuated between worry and a rarely seen expression, which Maleficent was fairly certain was pain.

"We..." Blue eyes flickered searchingly to Maleficent, waited for the smallest of nods, and then moved over the small assembly with a growing voice. "We will meet their army with ours... We have no choice. They cannot have this kingdom, and they cannot have the moors."

The council broke out into a fit of conversation. ( _"But the alliance with the East..." "...who will we trade for spices and silver..." "...their combined armies..."_ ) However, in the end, there was agreement between all souls present; for not a one was willing to endanger Aurora's crown, or the peace it had achieved.

Suddenly everyone was standing, and all at once everything was motion. 

"Ready the men, as quickly as you can, please."

"Yes, your majesty," bowed the captain of the guard.

"Diaval, tell Balthazar and the other border guards to mobilize."

"Yes, mistress," breathed the raven man. 

"Anyone willing to stand is to be given armor from the supplies - brass or silver - and a horse where we can spare it."

"Yes, your majesty." 

The room swept into a flurry of activity and commands, which carried Diaval away on his wings and each man and moorland thing away towards their cause until only Aurora was left, standing in her courtyard of a throne room, in the horned shadow of her protector. 

There was a long, slow breath, before small shoulders sunk visibly. When Aurora spun - eyes wide and fearful - the queen was a girl again.

_“Godmother-“_

The fairy's answer was immediate, “I’m here.”

Aurora stepped into outstretched arms, and Maleficent embraced her, smoothing hands over the girl's head and shoulder blades, petting down her back. The little queen clung fiercely to her, sobbed once - twice - and then quieted, breathing raggedly. 

"Don't be frightened," Maleficent murmured, as softly as she could manage. Warm breath hit at her collarbone, irregular with stifled fears. "Your subjects adore you, _all_ your subjects, and they will stand for you gladly." Maleficent gave a squeeze and whispered firmly, "There is not a one of us who would let harm befall you."

"Oh-" Aurora's face rose from her shoulder, eyes bright and tearful, "no, Maleficent - I'm not worried for me; I'm worried for my soldiers! They're such _good men._ "

Maleficent's lips twitched up with disbelief. Her _soldiers_. She was worried for her soldiers. 

Truly, Aurora was a better queen than any of them deserved.

Maleficent's amusement quickly slipped away at Aurora's increasing distress. "This conflict should have been avoided! Surely this could have been prevented." Aurora's eyes were wild and wide. "I could have traded them _something_. I am not the queen I should be; I should have-"

"Beastie."

Aurora stilled, quieting at the press of two fingers to her lips, and a low voice.

"Not all conflicts can be avoided," the fairy soothed. "Dissent from your own people could bring your rule into question, but this is not _of_ your people. This speaks only of the greed of other nations, not blessed with monarchs as virtuous as you." 

Maleficent felt the girl's hands clench in her robes, and a few tears slipped down over Aurora's cheek. 

"Their greed and prejudice is not your fault, Aurora, and should not rest on your shoulders."

The young queen stared back, uncertainly, and Maleficent pressed.

"This is _not_ your fault."

With a sigh, Aurora relaxed visibly in her arms, and let her head fall back to the fairy's shoulder.

"You are my strength," Aurora whispered, after a beat.

"And you are my queen," the fairy answered.

 

Maleficent flew high over head, and surveyed the troops. 

The men below her formed an army which was, from her place in the sky, discernable as only half as large as the army that opposed them. Only a fraction of Aurora's men road on horseback, and those who did carried visibly fewer weapons. There had been little left from Stephan's militaristic reign, once the iron in the kingdom was outlawed, and warfare - Maleficent realized with striking clarity from her place in the clouds - had never been a priority of Aurora's. 

Now, on the battlefield, it showed. 

Maleficent swooped back, diving across the several hundred feet still left between the meeting armies, and glided low along their front line. Through the armor and regalia she saw several men she recognized - the heavyset captain of guard, who was getting up in years, the lanky young man who often escorted Aurora to the moors and walked her horse back, and the soft-voiced soldier who frequently stood watch outside Aurora's bedchambers at night. 

These were Aurora's men, every one of them, and they wore a mask of determination and fidelity straight across - for their queen was nothing like her brutal father, whom many had the misfortune to serve, and they prized her for it. 

This loyalty, one Maleficent could almost taste on the air, was surprising to the fairy - and stirred something of her faith in men. Though, she supposed, it probably had less to do with them and more to do with Aurora. Aurora could conjure love from the lowliest of hearts. 

Maleficent knew this, perhaps, best of all. 

Several strong wing beats pushed her back up above the men and horses, and Maleficent felt her stomach turn, abruptly, as she caught an upsetting - though not unexpected - glimpse of gold in the crowd. 

Aurora rode, at the center of her army, atop a black and feathered horse. Two enormous tree guardians flanked her on either side, their thundering steps causing both horses and men to give a wide berth. Aurora sat straight, but Maleficent could see, past where blonde hair looked like as many golden threads in the sunlight, that the color had drained from her face. 

Maleficent swooped nearer, close enough to exchange words, but the sight did little to calm her. The little queen's knuckles were bone white as she gripped Diaval's mane, nearly hard enough to pull feathers, and from up close Maleficent could see that she was trembling. 

"We're outnumbered in men." Maleficent announced as she swept near enough to be heard, wishing that she had better news. 

Blue eyes blinked up at her -- and much as they had in the throne room, they looked wide - fearful - but not surprised. 

Aurora opened her mouth, as if to speak, but only nodded. 

The very idea of Aurora on a battle field petrified Maleficent in the way that a threat on their entire kingdom did not - made her stomach lurch in strange ways and bid her heart to ache - but Aurora was insistent. She was certain. 

Aurora was not a warrior, she did not aspire to _be_ a warrior, but she was adamant about being present for the battle. For surely she could not ask men and fairy folk alike to ride to the edge of her kingdom and stand for it when she would not. 

And it was not in Maleficent's nature to question the choices Aurora made, no matter how they pained her.

Maleficent looked to Diaval and even as a horse he saw her, out of one large, dark eye, and swiveled his ears. Maleficent had asked that Aurora trade her normal stallion for Diaval - who, Maleficent had quietly commanded, was to get Aurora as far away as possible if the battle turned against them.

If there were anyone she could trust with Aurora, it was Diaval. 

The kingdom's edge rose into sight - outlined by the falling away of trees and the yellowing of grass not touched by the unseen tendrils of the moors - and the faces of the opposition came into focus. Maleficent moved to beat her wings once, harder, to move to the front of the line - before she paused, looking at Aurora.

"Go on," Aurora encouraged in a tiny voice, gripping tight to Diaval. Her face was blanched, but she forced a smile. "I'm in good company."

The tree guardians at either side of her nodded their huge, knotted heads, and Balthazar rumbled in his deep, moorland tongue:

 _"With our lives."_

Maleficent nodded gratefully to him and cast Aurora a long, lingering look - full of more sentiment than words would allow, heart pounding in her chest - and then launched herself forward with the blast of wings. 

The armies stood, face to face now, only a sliver of land apart. When Maleficent touched ground between them, her back to Aurora's men, she could feel a sea of eyes upon her and the nervous shifting of horses at her back. 

She extended her wings, slowly, to their full length.

"Queen Aurora," she called out, in a steady voice, "sends her condolences to those who would forget the power of the Moors!"

Two separate banners waved before her, the purple and silver of Leria, and the blue and gold of Myrce. Maleficent looked down her nose at the sea of men, like so much filth, and felt a fury rising in her veins. 

Both armies dressed in their own colors, but wore pieces and held weapons made of iron.

"You must be Maleficent!" 

The deep, bellowing voice came from a heavily decorated man in blue and gold, standing just behind the front line. His orange beard was sprinkled with grey, and his horse wore a king's regalia. A top his head sat a jeweled crown. 

"I hear you keep _council_ with the queen," he drawled, and the men around him rippled with smiles, as if they were in on a joke. "Truly, your majesty must be a lover of beasts!"

There was a distasteful slickness to the innuendo, and Maleficent bristled at once - the earth at her feet slowly overturning as thorns, black and sharp, began to sprout from the ground around her. 

"Where is your princess, fairy?" came another, higher voice - from a young man dressed in purple and silver. This man, too, wore an elaborate crown. "Or has she sent beasts to lead her army as well?"

Green swirled at her fingertips, and Maleficent felt the thorns inching up beneath her feet, preparing to become a living weapon - and the horses and men shifted behind her, ready to follow her lead - and she bared her teeth -

"I am here."

A quiet, unassuming voice called out over the crowd. Maleficent turned to see that, at Aurora's word, soldiers and sentinels alike stilled, parting to give her room.

The sight of her, riding a horse - a _feathered_ , beaked horse - with no saddle or reigns, sparked a new ripple of whispers through the crowd as she stepped forward. Dressed simply in a green cloak - infinitely less ornate than her royal counterparts and without a banner or procession of any kind - she looked more girl than monarch. Only Aurora's slender, leafy crown marked her as the queen she was, and even that - without a single jewel - was not what they would suppose. 

Aurora leaned down near to Diaval's ear, running a hand over his neck and whispering, and her mount came to a steady halt midway through the crowd. His ears swiveled and his tail flicked from side to side, and the men around them parted to let Balthazar and his fellow guardian move with thundering steps to tower behind Aurora, as imposing as twin mountains. 

"You come to my kingdom wearing iron?" 

This voice, in a timber so entirely different from anything Maleficent had ever heard, left Aurora's lips in a disbelieving murmur. Blue eyes were as wide as ever, beneath the leafy crown - but there was something different there now too, _burning._

Diaval stepped from side to side, snorting, and mirrored Aurora's agitation.

"You would threaten my people and my land, after months under the pretense of peace, and you dare to _wear iron._ " 

With Aurora, her softest words were often the strongest, and these were no exception. There was a disbelief in her voice, like she could not possibly fathom men to be such monsters, and she drew up high on Diaval with an entirely foreign expression of disgust. 

“Leave our borders now,” Aurora commanded, with a fierceness Maleficent did not know her to possess, “or we will _chase you from them._ ” 

Maleficent stared, in awe.

There was another ripple of motion, of whispered words and half-certain sneers from the wall of opposing men, but it was not with the same levity - or certainty - that the king of Myrce replied:

“We do not fear the fairy-loving princess and her band of woodland _sprites_!”

This sentiment, somehow, rang hallow over his troops, and as they looked up across Aurora's men to the two forest guardians - towering somehow even higher now with spears ready in their enormous hands.

"Give up your crown now, princess," the king of Leria pressed, "and save yourself from a humiliating defeat."

Aurora turned, slowly, on Diaval's back to lock eyes with Maleficent, and begged her silent permission.

The fairy drew out her wings, lips twisting up in a sharp, proud smile, and with a nod she gave it.

"Rise," Aurora cried,"and _stand with us_!"

It was less than a shout, not quite a yell, but Aurora had never needed to speak loudly- not for Maleficent and not for the forest.

There was a deep, omnipotent rumble, and then all at once the creatures of bark and clay were rising - clawing their way from the earth on every side -and stepping out of the tree line in the dozens; moving on four legs and on two, and forming the half their army had been lacking. The moorland creatures greeted the enemy line with a fearsome, earth-shattering roar -- and the opposing kings took a collective breath as inhuman bodies, tall enough to block out the sun, rose around one who was not princess, but _queen_.

And Maleficent's heart skipped a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was kindly beta'd by [Stormy.](http://heyyouwiththeboobs.tumblr.com/) Any mistakes are still mine.
> 
> If you're waiting with baited breath for some more sapphic shenanigans, I'm sorry! That is absolutely the direction this fic is headed, but I feel that for them - given both Aurora's age and Maleficent's traumas - their relationship development would be a slow one. Hopefully you enjoy the ride.
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for the positive feedback I've received on this! It never fails to make my day and I appreciate the hell out every comment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as you can probably see, the ultimate chapter count changed. For the sake of publishing in more manageable chunks I'm going to be splitting the chapters more freely and organizing them in whatever way they seem to fall naturally. I've also removed the original chapter titles and quotes, since I'm abandoning the planned layout that went with them. I don't actually know what the ultimate chapter count will be, but I hope you all will forgive these changes in exchange for more regular updates. :)

Aurora sat astride a black and feathered horse - her green cloak and blonde hair whipping all around her - and Maleficent thought suddenly that Aurora looked more impressive than she had ever seen her, yet still too delicate to be on a battlefield. Like a little bird, with fine and fragile bones, flying into a storm.

Two sentiments warred unexpectedly in Maleficent's mind, and she was torn between being utterly awed and petrified; both of which pressed oppressively down on her lungs and forced out all the air.

Forest guardians charged past her on either side, towards the opposing army - a sea of creatures made from soil, earth, and sky - and the soldiers of Aurora's human kingdom followed with renewed vigor, emboldened by the power of the moorland forces and their shared queen. Maleficent registered dully that some of the men were shouting Aurora’s name.

Aurora, who sat unflinching with her chin held high, as the battlefield detonated around her.

Maleficent could scarcely hear, scarcely _feel,_ anything but the golden-haired girl. Even as Aurora’s hands clung to Diaval’s mane and her rosy face paled, blanched incredibly, the queen’s expression stayed frozen in a determined fierceness; and the sight wounded Maleficent, even as it evoked a helpless swell of pride.

For in that moment Aurora was not, nor perhaps would she ever again be, a child.

The clash began in a swelling so loud that, for several seconds, Maleficent could not hear anything. The world was blurred and silent motion, and then she was flooded all at once with hoof beats and shouts. Maleficent registered, faintly, that the earth beneath her was trembling. With a sharp beat of her wings she left the ground, shot high above the battle and realized that -- no -- the trembling had not stopped.

The earth was not trembling. _She_ was trembling.

There had been a time when Maleficent had relished this type of chaos, when an excuse to crush or be crushed by an army would have brought her a great and twisted joy. But now it seemed - as Maleficent flew towards the queen, utterly unable to breathe - that there was something Maleficent feared for more than her wings.

Something that was sitting entirely too close to the front line.

Maleficent thrashed her wings heavily, and the clash of swords and shields directly before Aurora was silenced with a gust of wind, knocking several men off their horses. The horses, wild-eyed and terrified, fled faster than their riders could gather them -- for they too had never seen anything like the beasts of earth and shadow Aurora had called to her side, and were just as petrified.

"Go," Maleficent called out over the din, as her feet touched down in front of the little queen. "Go, now!"

Her wings flared out, and Aurora - who she realized up close looked distinctly shell-shocked, staring out at the bedlam before her - finally looked back at her through slightly unfocused eyes.

Aurora blinked. "I..."

"You've done your part, Aurora," Maleficent rasped. "Now, _get back._ "

Diaval stomped a heavy hoof into the earth and snorted as an arrow came whizzing past them. Balthazar thundered his agreement above them, and, to Maleficent's overwhelming relief, Aurora nodded.

(Maleficent wouldn't realize until later how significant that was, that she thought Aurora might refuse at all.)

"Don't kill anyone you don't have to," was the queen's parting command. Which - Maleficent thought, as she blasted a swell of enemy soldiers back with a shot of hot light - was going to make the task at hand much harder.

 

Maleficent swirled the magic in a golden whirl between her fingertips.

In an instant, covered in a bright and glistening mist, both kings were lifted once again screaming off of the ground. They rose up above their troops, shouting in horror, and levitated to where Maleficent herself hovered in the air, wings extended.

“WITCH!” The king of Myrce bellowed, as his helmet slipped off his head and fell fifty feet. The king of Leria was now hovering, upside-down, next to him. “You filthy, _unholy-_ “

Maleficent smiled sharply. “Charming.”

Any further titles were effectively cut off with a snap of her fingers, which killed the light around them.

Both kings plummeted rapidly back to earth, tumbling and clunking in their regalia. Her signature thorns lifted to overturn the ground beneath them, black and sharp, and Maleficent indulged the thought, briefly, of letting their bodies collide with them – of _impaling_ them, the greedy, disrespectful things.

But it was not to be.

Her lips twitched. Right above the ground, with a flick of her fingers she stopped them, frozen in undignified panic.

Maleficent took a few seconds to spin the kings freely, whirled them through the air, and then brought them back up to her level. The remaining soldiers below her scrambled in an attempt to release their kings, an enemy archer taking quick aim at her, but – before she could so much as lift a finger – Aurora's captain of the guard had rushed forward, sword raised.

Over the flattened archer he lifted a gauntlet-clad hand to Maleficent, and she tipped her head, respectfully, in return.

When Maleficent's eyes flicked back up she found the king of Myrce spluttering, while the king of Leria was floating silently, his mouth hanging open. With a single raised eyebrow, Maleficent reached forward and plucked the decorative, jeweled crowns from their both their heads. When she smiled, both kings cringed.

"Listen well, all of you!"

When Maleficent spoke, the remaining scuffling below seemed to still. Balthazar held a kicking man at arm's length, while a gnarled troll, somewhat begrudgingly, stopped clubbing a line of downed soldiers. Several hundred faces looked up at them, and it was plain to see that almost all of those in enemy colors were poised for surrender, weapons down.

Maleficent locked eyes with the defeated kings, and the golden glow in her eyes edged, dangerously, into green.

"Your miserable lives," she announced, lip curling, "shall be spared at the mercy of Queen Aurora.”

A wave of mutters flew through the men below, and the bodies before her slackened, minutely, with relief.

"While I am certain you are not worthy of such leniency," Maleficent continued, with a definite sneer, "Queen Aurora has graciously resolved _not_ to send both your kingdoms into civil chaos by killing you."

The men below murmured, whispered, and moorland souls hummed. Somewhere off behind their troops a slim and golden crown caught the light, and a young woman smiled.

_"However..."_

Maleficent's fingers shimmered and reflected the same furious green as her eyes.

“Should you ever return to our borders under anything but a cowed banner of peace-”

Maleficent sparked magic over both the crowns in her hand with a deadly green flare, and - as if only ice - the solid metal rapidly began to melt. Liquid gold trickled down to sprinkle the earth at their feet, and precious jewels fell like forgotten stones into the mud.

"I will see to it _personally,_ " Maleficent snarled, looking into their round eyes, "that you are not afforded the same courtesy twice."

 

To the final crashes of a dying battle, Maleficent swept after Diaval.

She dove down low to the ground, beyond the last vestiges of their army, and found his equine body pacing, flanked by two forest sentinels standing tall above the queen. Diaval slowed at the sight of Maleficent, snorting and stepping forward with clear anxiety. The whites of his eyes were showing. Aurora was still astride him, slumped loosely over his neck.

"Did we..." Aurora murmured, "I mean, are they..."

The queen looked up at her through tangled hair with a meek sort of smile, and Maleficent could see Aurora's forehead was beaded with sweat.

"Retreating," Maleficent answered, stepping forward at once to reach out for her. The queen lifted herself up, tried to sit straight, but collapsed back over Diaval's neck with a small gasp. Maleficent's breath caught, her throat tightened, and the air her lungs pulled at seemed all at once useless- like drowning.

"Aurora," Maleficent choked, "what-"

She steadied the girl by the shoulder with both hands - evoking a shuddering cry - and felt something wet on her fingers.

The green fabric gathered at Aurora's shoulder, above her breastplate, was… _darker._ Redder.

Bloody.

Maleficent swept Aurora into her arms in one swift motion, gathering the bundle of blonde hair and uneven breaths against her, as she turned the horse back into a man.

_"What-"_

"Mistress," Diaval managed, getting up from his knees, "an arrow caught her in the fray. She didn't want you to know while the battle was still..." His eyes softened, even as Maleficent looked down at the girl, bleeding freely now from her shoulder where an arrow had gone clear through. "She was afraid you would not show the mercy she had asked for if you knew." Diaval's voice was quick and pleading, "Please, mistress, she'll be alright. Just..."

But his words were long gone, blocked out by a deafening roar. The world swam, suddenly and irreversibly _green,_ and everything was noise. Maleficent did not even register Diaval, or the fact that he was reaching urgently for her until the blast knocked him back.

A shot had made it through to the queen, after all.

This, Maleficent knew as her heart constricted, she could not forgive.

Thorns across the field burst once again to life, this time lashing out at retreating enemy soldiers without flourish. Her magic dragged the surrendering men sharply and suddenly back, even as they tried to run, and swept them high into the air.

A little voice, small and faint, was murmuring against her, but Maleficent could not hear it.

Her lips twisted into a sharp and savage snarl. Maleficent could _feel_ the thorns and vines coiling and tightening in around armored rib cages, beginning to bend metal. She could hear the screaming.

"Godmother..."

It was long moments before Maleficent could feel the body in her arms moving or hear Aurora's voice, high and desperate.

_"Maleficent."_

Small, clammy hands grabbed at her face, and Aurora's blue eyes finally came into focus, squinting with concentration - or with pain.

"Stop," Aurora pleaded, in a small and fragile voice, her thumbs pressing into sharp cheekbones, "please, stop."

Maleficent inhaled.

"They're retreating," Aurora whispered, breathlessly. "We've won."

Suddenly the screaming wasn't quite so loud. Maleficent felt the magic in her eyes and hands slowly pulling inward. The thorns, somewhere far across the field, began to unwind.

Familiar hands swept over her cheeks and jaw line. Aurora pet gently over Maleficent's chin, and a fingertip smoothed over her lips. Maleficent felt the green fire dying slowly in her eyes, and the gale winds she had not realized she was creating - blowing everything back from around them - calmed.

Somewhere in the distance, fleeing soldiers pried themselves free, and her thorns fell back to the earth.

Bright eyes sparkled, even through the pain. "Thank you."

Maleficent reached down to cup the queen's cheek and, when Aurora's fingers moved again over dark red lips, Maleficent kissed them.

 

* * *

   
  
A tap, short and irritating, rung out along the side of the guard's helmet, and startled him out of his reverie.

He looked around, glaring,but there was no one else in the hallway. His eyes settled finally on his fellow sentry -face slack, apparently sleeping on the other side of the doorway - and frowned. He drummed all his fingers loudly across the sleeping man's helmet.

When the second man jerked awake, swatting the hand away with a startled grunt, he was greeted with a glare.

“What’re ya playin’ at?”

"Wha-" The second man wiped a bit of drool from his chin. “You woke _me!_ ”

They glared at one another for a long moment before settling back down with their arms crossed, frowning like bookends.

Maleficent sparked the magic between her fingertips,tapping again on the side of the first guard's head and sending the men into another round of escalating bickering.

"Fallen back to old habits, I see?" A low voice asked.

Diaval offered up a smile, and Maleficent rounded on him immediately, the guards forgotten – even as they began slapping and tapping their armor together with heavy clanks in a scuffle.

"Aurora?" she demanded, standing very close, her eyes flashing.

"She's fine," Diaval soothed. He reached out, as if to close the space between them, but then remembered that he was not a bird. He settled, instead, for speaking softly. "Mistress, like they told you in there, Aurora is going to be fine."

Maleficent turned away, arms folding.

"I don't see why I had to leave, while a pest like you was permitted to stay."

Diaval’s lips twitched. "Because _pests like me_ don't petrify the help."

Maleficent huffed indignantly. Apparently her presence frightened both apothecaries and healers out of efficiency, hovering over them and glaring daggers into anyone that moved Aurora such that it pained her. Which, unfortunately for them, was most every way they moved her.

Diaval had finally coaxed Maleficent out into the hall by saying that Aurora needed to stop focusing on Maleficent and start focusing on the healers - because while Maleficent was fretting heavily over her, Aurora had found it in herself, even in a bit of a stupor, to keep fretting over Maleficent.

"The arrow went straight through, missed everything important." Diaval murmured, in that same soothing voice that both irked and eased his mistress. "Barring infection, she'll be up and slinging mud by the next moon."

Maleficent continued to look unimpressed.

They stood in silence for a time, watching the two guards Maleficent had agitated-whose helmets were off now as they yelled at one another across the hall. Another castle guard, wearing more regalia than the first two, turned the corner and shouted animatedly at them both.

"Aurora seems so unwaveringly, _invincibly_ bright all time." Diaval said, quietly. "It's shocking, a bit - to see her hurting." Maleficent felt his eyes flicker onto her face, trying to catch her gaze. "A reminder of her mortality."

Maleficent only hummed, closing her eyes. "Are all ravens such philosophers?"

"No." She could practically feel Diaval smiling. "You got lucky."

 

When Maleficent was finally permitted entrance into Aurora's bedchambers, when all the doctors and apothecaries and finished their work and moved, rather quickly, out of sight, Diaval was right behind her.

Aurora had not chosen the tallest tower or the largest room, nor had she taken any of the ornate chambers traditionally reserved for royalty. She had chosen, instead, the room with the most windows.

The windows were left perpetually open, and there were several that had been expanded upon to encompass the majority of the outer wall. Vines crept their way into the queen's bedchambers and wove delicately up the stonewalls, sunlight spilling in after them. It was a beautiful meeting of outside and in, and the openness of it all prevented Maleficent from ever feeling trapped -- and, she suspected, did the same for Aurora.

"Hey, little hatchling," Diaval said, as he stepped up to the bed. "How's the scratch?"

Aurora smiled up at them from the pillows. The air smelled sharp and bitterly herbal, and a white bandage covered Aurora's shoulder. When Diaval reached forward to take her hand - the hand attached to her good shoulder -Aurora squeezed it, wrinkling up her nose.

"Itchy."

"You had us worried," Diaval said, with all the warmth that, in his raven form, meant he would be halfway into her hair by now.

Aurora shook her head and fidgeted a bit, as if to show them she was fine.

Maleficent settled herself down on the side of bed, and Aurora reached immediately for her. A single hand grabbed at Maleficent's wrist and squeezed it, urgently- holding onto the fairy, all at once, both too tightly and not nearly tight enough.

Diaval cleared his throat and stepped towards the window in a small offering of privacy. Maleficent turned Aurora's hand over, and laced their fingers tentatively together.

"Hello," Aurora murmured, eyes gentle. Then, after a moment, "Are you upset with me?"

A single eyebrow lifted. That, Maleficent had not expected.

"Whatever for?"

"Uhm," Aurora looked up at Maleficent through blonde lashes, "for not letting anyone tell you I'd been shot?"

"Mm." Maleficent tilted her chin up, eyes flickering over the walls, tracing along the vines. "Not if you've forgiven me for trying to strangle a fleeing army."

To Maleficent’s surprise, Aurora laughed.

"Trying may not be the right word," Aurora said, finally, and Diaval's shoulders jerked across the room in what looked suspiciously like a suppressed laugh. Opposite Maleficent on the bed, the queen's lips tipped up in an impressed sort of smile. "I think you could strangle an entire kingdom if you set your mind to it…and I mean that in the best possible way."

In spite of herself, Maleficent felt her own lips twitching upwards. It seemed, then, that she was forgiven.

The queen’s thumb brushed over her palm for several seconds, and with a newfound contentment Maleficent watched it. When she looked up she found that Aurora was, in turn, watching her. Aurora was flushed now – her voice strangely low. 

"Maleficent, you were incredible."

Maleficent felt her own cheeks warm slightly at the compliment, made sweeter somehow by the use of her name. Her eyes flickered down, studying their hands resting on Aurora's lap.

"I don't think," Aurora said, after several inexplicably heavy moments, "that anyone is coming for my crown after that."

Maleficent managed to channel her delight into a simple nod, and a murmur of agreement.

"I would certainly be surprised if they did."

Trade would be difficult. There was much to be done in the way of solidifying the kingdom’s other foreign relations. But, all things considered, the day could have gone much worse.

Maleficent leaned forward, pulling the fabric of the bandage aside carefully, and studied the shoulder’s broken skin. The smell of medicine intensified, and though the wound looked significantly less daunting now that the blood had been washed away, she still frowned.

“It’s nothing, godmother.”

Maleficent clucked her tongue, disapprovingly.

“It will heal," Aurora insisted, "given a little time.”

"Diaval." At Maleficent's word he turned to face them. "There is a plant in the moors, to the far west of the great lake, near where the ash trees grow. The Meliai will know where to find it. Applying it now will prevent infection and speed up the healing process." Maleficent lifted her eyebrows, pointedly. "We need it as soon as possible."

Diaval had the good sense not to point out that Maleficent could fly much faster than any raven. He only nodded, graciously. "I can fly through the night."

When he leaned down to kiss Aurora's cheek, causing her nose to wrinkle up again happily, she said, "Thank you."

Maleficent tipped her head, and once again Diaval was a bird. Though, before dismissing him, she reached out to pet his feathers. He nipped at her fingers, affectionately.

When Diaval had shook out his wings and leapt from the open window, both queen and fairy watched his silhouette disappear, their hands still intertwined. It was long moments before Aurora pulled her hand free and reached up to touch Maleficent’s side, where her robes - Maleficent had not noticed - were stained a ghastly crimson.

“That’s all my blood?” Aurora asked, sounding a little horrified.

Maleficent carefully took Aurora's fingers between her own and moved them away, shaking off the question.

"It is deep," Maleficent said, frowning at Aurora's shoulder. "It will scar."

Aurora looked to Maleficent's hands, thoughtfully.

“One of the apothecaries asked if you could heal wounds,” Aurora said, “the same way that you heal trees."

Maleficent tilted her head. Her magic was not for men, it was for the earth and the trees and the moors, her magic spoke to nature.

But then again, it also spoke to Aurora.

Sometimes, when the queen stood close, Maleficent could feel her magic pulling towards her. On occasion, when the queen was particularly fretful, Maleficent would let the light flow freely from her fingertips, and Aurora would watch with the same, great amazement – unaware, perhaps, that the light was slowly gravitating towards her.

Tentatively, Maleficent held out a hand and let a few wisps of light leave her fingertips. They reached, like vines growing upwards, for Aurora.

“With you, perhaps I could," Maleficent said. "Would you like me to try?”

Aurora thought on this for a moment, taking Maleficent's hands again in her own and examining them. When she answered, eyes flicking up, her voice was surprisingly steady.

“No.”

Maleficent blinked. 

“The most beautiful souls wear scars.” Aurora continued, eyes moving over Maleficent's wings, where marred tissue still marked their base. “There’s a power in them, I think, that is not to be dismissed.”

Aurora smiled, and Maleficent was once again torn somewhere between being livid that an arrow had ever touched Aurora’s skin - _her_ Aurora's skin - and being deeply proud.

For that was not the answer of a girl.

“Would it be off-putting, to you?” Aurora asked after a beat, looking bashful. "A scar? I don't suppose it's very lady-like."

" _You're_ not very lady-like," Maleficent teased, a smile curving her lips. She reached forward fondly, and brushed some of the hair from Aurora's eyes. 

When she spoke again it was a whisper, and her pulse thrummed beneath the skin. “To the contrary, beastie. I think it would be quite becoming.”

Aurora's brilliant smile put the sunset to shame.

“Then it can stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [Stormy](http://heyyouwiththeboobs.tumblr.com/) and [myotherpatronusisanotter](http://myotherpatronusisanotter.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing this story! Mistakes are still mine.
> 
> Apologies for the delay between chapters, and thank you for your continued support and feedback! Your comments are the fuel to this fire, and are deeply appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to the fantastic [Limn-the-Night](http://limn-the-night.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing this chapter and for all of her brilliant suggestions! Mistakes are, of course, still mine.

Two figures sat in the royal bedchambers by twilight, leaning over a large stone basin. Flickering candles and the dying sun illuminated a horned head bent low, grinding leaves with a mortar and pestle. Heavy wings were tucked carefully at the woman's back, and they twitched and stretched periodically, as if just being indoors made them feel cramped. A smaller figure perched beside her on the stone basin's edge, bare legs swinging and toes trailing through the water. A large, black raven was half-visible sleeping in a makeshift nest of leaves and cloth across the room, and the two women spoke softly as not to wake him.  
  
"They're absolutely awful," Aurora said, wrinkling up her nose with distaste. "Somehow impossibly rude and formal all at the same time. So dishonest, so hopelessly..." She motioned vaguely into the air, as if no words could describe the unpleasantness of the diplomats sent from the eastern kingdoms, with whom she was now meeting daily.  
  
Aurora's nightdress was drawn down low over her shoulder, one arm pulled out, so that Maleficent could change her bandages. This was a practice which, though met with no solid objections from the royal healers, had inspired a lot of frowning among the appointed medical staff. Still, Maleficent had insisted on doing it herself; in part because she hated the way the human healers pulled and prodded at Aurora, and in part because it gave them an excuse to sit alone and speak each night without fear of being overheard.  
  
"They're just, just _so_..."  
  
"Slimy?" Maleficent supplied, pouring another cup of warm water carefully over Aurora's shoulder and into the basin. The queen cringed only slightly when it trickled over her healing wound, washing away the last of the day's dried blood.  
  
"Yes," Aurora agreed, "very slimy. Surely the whole kingdom, surely _all_ the kingdoms, must know that every other word out of their mouths is a lie."  
  
"Every other word?"  Maleficent raised an eyebrow, lips pursed. "That may be giving them too much credit."  
  
Aurora grinned appreciatively, and Maleficent chuckled.  
  
There was a moment of comfortable silence while Maleficent applied ground herbs to the open wound with careful fingertips, then waved a hand to draw away the excess water into the tub. The queen seemed at ease, and as Maleficent fastened new bandages over the freshly cleaned wound she chanced a lingering look at Aurora, out of the corner of her eye.  
  
Aurora looked tired, as if she were having about as much fun hosting the political negotiations as Maleficent was having watching them, but she was starting to look healthy again. There was a warm glow to her cheeks that had been absent the first few weeks of recovery, and her eyes, though there were circles under them, were as bright as they had ever been.  
  
"You've been handling all of this very well, Aurora," Maleficent said finally, into the dying light.  
  
For all of Aurora's distaste for the sordid nature of politics, she had done very little to show it. The queen had met the assembled council of foreigners every day with a patient grace, the likes of which Maleficent never could have conjured from herself. In truth, if left to her own devices, Maleficent would _still_ have dropped the kings to their deaths without a second thought, and would have thrown every last diplomat from the castle walls for their insolence. There was a reason Maleficent did not aspire to power any longer. Their world did not need more wounds ripped into it.  
  
Only souls like Aurora, who knew more of tearing down walls than of putting them up, could provide the type of mercy needed now. Mercy given not because it was deserved - not by these kings, not by the human kingdom, and most certainly not by Maleficent - but because it was needed.  
  
"Thank you," Aurora murmured, and Maleficent looked up from where she was washing her hands to find Aurora smiling at her with soft eyes in the flickering light. "It means a lot to me, to hear you say that."  
  
Maleficent only tipped her head in deference to the queen, and looked back into the water, drawing a purposefully slow breath. It was difficult to look at Aurora, sometimes. She could be so dreadfully beautiful when she smiled.  
  
"Although, I have to say," Aurora added eventually, grinning and poking a wet toe into Maleficent's side. "I think you glowering over them several hours a day has certainly helped keep them in line.” Maleficent swatted at the offending foot. “When you coughed this morning,” Aurora continued, “I think one of the diplomats from Myrce actually trembled so hard he smashed his teacup."  
  
"Mm, so that's what that was." Maleficent smiled leisurely. "I thought, perhaps, that he just fancied destroying a little more of your kingdom by crushing the royal china."  
  
Aurora shook her head. "They're terrified of you."  
  
"Well," Maleficent drawled, snapping her fingers and bathing them both in a soft gold light that emanated from her fingers and eyes, power embodied. "Maybe there's some sense to them, after all."  
   
 

* * *

  
  
The days drew on and, as Maleficent had predicted after the battle, there were no more signs of trouble from the east. The negotiations were dreadfully tedious, the foreign kings somehow both spiteful and simpering, but Aurora pressed forward with a peace treaty just the same. In the months that followed the battle Aurora healed quickly and well, with Maleficent, Diaval, and a constantly rotating cycle of soldiers watching over her, and it became apparent that the mood in the castle had changed.  
  
While the queen healed she was looked after with an almost aggressive level of devotion, and not just from her fairy and raven.  If the men had had hesitations about Aurora's capabilities in the past - she was young, and untraditional in a way that only a girl raised by fairies could be - their doubts had all but evaporated in the wake of the battle. Sweeping victory aside, the knowledge that their young queen was now sporting a battle wound - that Aurora had been willing to take an _arrow_ for her kingdom, just like the rest of them - had stoked an almost feverish loyalty to life among the troops. This gave Aurora far more protectors than a perfectly safe castle could possibly warrant, and a great many admirers.  
  
Aurora was happy for the company, and often chatted animatedly with soldiers and castle staff alike, smiling and laughing with an unconventional enthusiasm. Though she recognized the importance of the awe Aurora was inspiring, Maleficent did not enjoy the many faces quite as much. She longed for the moors, for long flights and river baths and the bursts of fairy color that lit the moors at night, but she could not, _would not_ leave. Though all Aurora's visitors wore smiling faces, Maleficent knew better than to take all smiles as sincere. So Maleficent watched all the queen's visitors closely, and made her presence known with a flex of her wings, or a spark of idle magic from the shadows.  
  
Aurora's three pixie aunts (much to Maleficent's chagrin) were also frequent visitors to Aurora's bedchambers, and took to fussing relentlessly and ever unhelpfully over their would-be daughter. Knotgrass in particular was keen on wondering loudly how Maleficent could have _ever_ let their little sprite step onto a battlefield -- to which Maleficent replied, in an increasingly terse voice, that Aurora did not need her permission for anything.  
  
(It was only when, during one particularly annoying visit, Maleficent swept the three pixies up into an 'accidental' tornado around Aurora's bedchambers that Knotgrass finally stopped asking.)  
  
Between fussy pixies and protective human guards, Maleficent was granted very little time alone with the healing queen. They sat close in the evenings, and Aurora took her hand often - as obstinate as ever in the face of the disapproving stares - but Maleficent felt, suddenly, that there was much she wanted to say to Aurora. For though the queen grew stronger every day, Maleficent's mind could not shake the image of Aurora as a small and broken thing on the battlefield, and her heart was heavy with words unsaid.  
  
But there were meetings to be held and treaties to write, and a thousand lengthy conversations to be had about how to deal with the betrayal from the kingdoms to the east - and Maleficent stood by patiently, an ever-present shadow that towered over Aurora in almost perfect silence.  
  
The needs of court and kingdom came first, and whatever Maleficent wanted to say, it would just have to wait.  
   
 

* * *

  
  
It was late in the summer months when - at no further sign of foreign trouble, and a tentative peace on the horizon - Aurora was finally permitted to return to the moors.  
  
At the forest's edge they were met by the fair folk, brimming with so much excitement that they caused the flowers to bloom out of season and young trees to burst skyward, and a grinning Aurora was immediately swept into the throng of squeaking, creaking and fluttering subjects. There was a great celebration, the likes of which Maleficent had not seen since Aurora's coronation. For it seemed the fair folk, too, were newly impressed with their queen, and they showed it through a characteristic and rambunctious display of colors, music, and dance.  
  
Nearly a week had passed, of babbling pixies and squealing nymphs and more dances and mudfights and lake swims than Maleficent could possibly count, before the fairy woke in the branches of her rowan to blessed silence. She craned her neck around and saw, for the first time since their arrival, that there were not the usual dozen saucer eyes peering up eagerly from the ground in search of Aurora. Even Diaval was nowhere to be seen, his nest empty in the branches above.  
  
In fact, with the exception of Aurora - the little bundle of fair hair and sleepy murmurs resting under her wing - Maleficent was perfectly alone.  
  
She stretched, and leaned back pleasantly into the patches of sunlight that shone through the rowan's leaves. The queen's thin sleeping shift put little room between them, leaving their skin sticky where their bodies had pressed together in sleep, and Maleficent wondered vaguely when Aurora had begun to sleep beside her even in the heat.  
  
Maleficent lifted up on her elbow and looked down at the sleeping queen. She trailed a finger, carefully, over a rosy cheek and brushed a few stray hairs aside. Sharp eyes followed the wild mess of blonde to where it spilled over a fair and freckled shoulder, and over the arrow wound. Scar tissue, white and raised, was already forming around the closing depression in Aurora's skin, and the sight of it made something painful constrict in Maleficent's chest, and then something deeper flutter.  
  
Diaval's voice flickered to life in her mind, _"A reminder of her mortality."_  
  
The woman against Maleficent breathed softly, slept easily, and even in repose her lips looked as if they were smiling. She was Stephan's child and Maleficent's revenge. Maleficent wondered when, exactly, she had ceased to be those things and simply became Aurora.  
  
Aurora.  
  
Maleficent repeated the queen's name in a breath, and the word sparked something to life in her that she seemed to feel more keenly all the time, something that made her throat tighten and her breath catch. It filled her mind's eye with girlish squeals, with flushed and muddy cheeks, and with a familiar grin that ran from ear to ear. Then, it showed her Aurora's usually gentle eyes narrowed as men and moorland things charged past her on either side of a battlefield, her face a picture of fierce determination.  
  
Maleficent looked from the start of the scar that marred Aurora's shoulder - jagged and sharp, worldly and wounded - to the unwavering softness of Aurora's face, and it was as if all the air had been pulled from her lungs.  
  
There, so near against her, Maleficent could hear Aurora's every inhalation and see every freckle well enough to count. She could feel the hips of the little queen, as Aurora arched and shifted in sleep, pressing back lightly into her own. She could breathe the light scent of their mingled sweat, and feel the other woman's skin.  
  
Fingertips ghosted tentatively over Aurora's arm - so relaxed, so trusting, even as the fairy's own body tensed. She could see Aurora, soft and radiant in the morning light, with such perfect clarity that she heard an echo of Aurora's voice from years ago:  
  
 _Godmother_ , _what am I to you?_  
  
Maleficent had sat in the moors and watched the fair folk celebrate the new queen's coronation in the trickling moonlight. She had heard the swelling emotion in the girl's voice, and seen the hopefulness in bright eyes. She had felt tentative fingers touch her skin, and Maleficent knew, even then, even years ago --  
  
There was nothing that Aurora would deny her. Nothing the girl would not give.  
  
Maleficent looked over Aurora's sleeping form, at soft pink lips, and was taken by the fierce and sudden desire to kiss them.  
  
It was warm and smooth, the thought of Aurora's lips pressed to hers, and a memory of the little sigh that left Aurora's lips when she stretched contentedly or bit into berries that were sweet swelled in her mind. Maleficent wondered, suddenly, if she too could draw that noise from Aurora, and she knew, somehow, that she _could.._.  
  
Then, another memory of Aurora's words flickered to life in her mind.  
  
 _Don't touch me!_  
  
She saw Aurora's face, twisted in hurt and pain, and Maleficent's stomach lurched --  
  
 _You're the evil that's in the world._  
  
Maleficent recoiled, and her wing shuddered, twitched, and lifted off of Aurora's sleeping form as if it had burned her.  
  
Aurora's life had been tainted enough by Maleficent, and the fairy had not forgotten. In truth, she was monstrous for keeping Aurora as close as she did; selfish and indulgent for allowing the queen to grace her with gentle touches and warm looks, so undeserved.  
  
Cruel, to let Aurora look at her the way she did. To let the girl love a monster.   
  
Across the hammock a sleeping figure stirred, slowly blinking in the morning light.   
  
"Something wrong?" Aurora murmured, rolling over and rubbing at her eyes. Her gaze fell keenly on Maleficent's stiffly drawn up wing; and slowly, forcibly, Maleficent relaxed it.  
  
"Mm," Maleficent answered, noncommittally. Her heart was still pounding uncomfortably in her chest. Prismatic eyes swept over the branches around them, tracing the familiar shapes of leaves. She reclined, slowly, back onto her side, and tried to steady herself. Tried, even more unsuccessfully, to ease the guilty twisting of her stomach.  
  
"Only dreams," she said, closing her eyes. Willing herself, fiercely, not to look at Aurora's lips.  
  
Truly, Maleficent _was_ a monster, for only a monster could covet the destruction of something so sweet. And destruction it would be, for while Aurora saw the best in people Maleficent saw the truth - and the truth, Maleficent's truth, was hideous.  
  
"Did you sleep well?" Maleficent heard her own voice ask, somewhere far away.  
  
Her voice was not even, in fact it sounded raw. But Aurora was accustomed to Maleficent sitting with her demons in the mornings, and did not press.  
  
The queen only hummed in the affirmative and with a long, sighing stretch, curled forward - effectively demolishing the few inches of space between them. She nestled herself into Maleficent's shoulder and familiar fingers rose to thread into Maleficent's hair and horns, stroking in what was surely meant to be a soothing touch.  
  
And Maleficent wondered, with a growing sense of urgency, when _exactly_ she had let their boundaries of personal space degrade into this. __  
  
The hand in her hair slowed and she could feel Aurora stiffen, to begin to wonder if she had done something wrong --  
  
"Is everything-"  
  
"Yes," Maleficent said, quickly. "Yes."  
  
Maleficent wrapped her arm around Aurora's waist and drew her in closer, long fingers splaying out in the small of Aurora's back. She closed her eyes and breathed wordlessly into Aurora's hair, _this is not your fault_. Maleficent's eyes pricked, burned dryly, but the queen relaxed in her arms.  
  
The birds chirped happily to the sounds of wind in the trees, and for several minutes the sun rose slowly higher in the sky, warming them through the leaves.  
  
"I dreamed of you," Aurora said, eventually, into the fairy's skin. Maleficent had outwardly relaxed, but at this the wing that had draped back over them gave a small twitch.  
  
"Did you now?" Maleficent breathed.  
  
"Oh, yes. Flying, over and over the castle with Diaval." Aurora opened one eye to glance affectionately at the tawny feathers tucked over her, as she had many times before. "It's wonderful when you fly. I love your wings."  
  
The wings Aurora had returned to her. The wings that still, several years later, Aurora was not allowed to touch.  
  
Maleficent pulled back and looked directly into Aurora's eyes. The queen blinked, uncertainly, but did not shy away. Maleficent observed her with an unwavering focus, and her treacherous heart beat ever faster in her chest.  
  
She saw a girl, observant and patient, who gave trust where it was not deserved. Then a woman, who had found something in _her_ , of all things, worthy of loving--  
  
Maleficent reached out, gently, to sweep a thumb over Aurora's cheek. Then, with a slow determination, inhaled.  
  
"You may touch them," Maleficent said, with a casual air that did not at all meet her eyes, a wing shifting pointedly over Aurora, "if you wish."  
  
The wind moved in the trees, and the woman tangled up with her held her breath.  
  
"I..."  Aurora's voice came, uncertainly. "Your...wings?"  
  
Maleficent rolled her eyes, exasperated by her own impulsiveness. "What _else_ , you silly beast?"  
  
Aurora looked elated at first, eyes wide, and then hesitant - as if she were afraid of doing something so long forbidden. They laid together for several moments in silence, and it was difficult to say who looked more intimidated.  
  
Then, all at once, Aurora's lips twisted in a mischievous grin.  
  
"Did you meeean," Aurora sing-songed, "your cheeks?"  
  
The queen reached with pawing hands for the fairy's face and Maleficent protested, pulling her wing back and rolling away with an indignant hiss. Aurora clamored on top of her, prodding shortly at Maleficent's cheek bones and giggling uncontrollably at the horrified way Maleficent screwed up her face.  
  
"Ooor..." Aurora crooned, wiggling her fingers threateningly, "could you mean your _eyes?_ "  
  
"Get off me, you horrid little thing!"  
  
Maleficent snatched Aurora's hands out the air and held them up over her head, trying and failing spectacularly at looking annoyed. Aurora looked down at her cheerily, and - though she fought hard for a scowl - Maleficent's own lips eventually twitched up in a smile; only a fraction as bright as Aurora's, but magnitudes brighter than any she had known in the years the moors were dark.  
  
Eventually the little queen stilled her fidgeting, though continued grinning like trouble incarnate, and Maleficent released her with a fierce glare that fooled no one. Aurora turned in place, scooting down to lean back against Maleficent. The queen settled in with her head against her chest, and Maleficent thought once again, with a dulled sense of urgency, that this proximity was deeply inappropriate.  
  
Maleficent lowered a wing down on top of Aurora, as she had many times before, and the queen stilled.  
  
"You know," Aurora started, "you don't have to-"  
  
"No," Maleficent interrupted, sharply. Then, much more softly, "No, I..." Maleficent's heart beat faster and more anxiously with every passing second, throat tight around her words. "I want you to."  
  
Her fingers splayed over Aurora's shoulder, squeezed, and she felt the queen breathe more easily against her. Maleficent's nose was tickled by sleep-mussed blonde hair, and she lost herself for a moment in the familiar sounds and smells of the forest, coupled with the familiar sounds and smells of Aurora.  
  
"Are they sensitive?" Aurora asked, shifting slightly.  
  
She had never lied to Aurora. Today did not seem like a good day to start.  
  
"They are," Maleficent answered, evenly.  
  
Aurora tilted her head back and searched her face for one last confirmation. Maleficent's gaze flickered from familiar eyes down to the queen's pale scar - earned _defending_ the moors - and Maleficent breathed a little more easily.  
   
"Go on," she prompted, hoarsely.  
  
Aurora's fingers smoothed over her feathers, tender and careful. They swept, slowly, from the longest flight feathers to the smallest fringe, with a reverence and affection that seemed to both unwind every muscle in Maleficent's body and bring them all to life. She could feel, rather than hear, Aurora humming a light and joyful tune softly under her breath, and Maleficent allowed herself to get lost in the sound.  
  
They laid like that for an eternity; so long that worlds moved and stars realigned, and the path to Maleficent's heart became a song, hummed under a queen's breath in the morning light.  
  
In truth, the sun had scarcely moved in the sky when Maleficent lifted her wing from Aurora and bid her racing heart to slow. Maleficent tucked her wings back behind her and wrapped her arms around the queen as tightly as she dared, memorizing the feel.  
  
When Aurora smiled up at her it was unbearably gentle, unfathomably warm; and she whispered in the sweetest tone, "Thank you, for trusting me." ~~~~  
  
The fluttering in Maleficent's chest came back tenfold, threatened to swallow her whole-- ~~~~  
  
And Maleficent's mind whispered, _I could never deserve you._  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback, both positive and critical, is so very welcome. <3 As always, thank you for reading!


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